Fortunately, after playing around all hope is lost! There actually IS a way to take screenshots on an Android and this groovy guide will show you how in our typical step-by-step process. The best part is using this method, you won’t need to transfer your images from your phone to your computer for blogging since your computer is what is capturing the images!

This is going to be a rather long guide (possibly the longest on groovyPost!) so I’ll break it down into five different sections.Click a section to move directly to it:

#1. Download the Development Kits

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3 – Optional: Device drivers (For Samsung Galaxy S users only)

When you plug-in your phone it’s most likely that Windows won’t be able to automatically find the driver to make your computer recognize the device. For Samsung Galaxy S users this is especially true, you will need to download the driver below.

#4. Set Up USB Drivers For Your Device

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

In the Devices list your Android phone should appear. Right-Click the phone and SelectProperties.

Step 4

Click the Hardware tab and then Select the line that reads Android ADB.

The rest of the drivers should for the most already be installed, but you may have to download device specific drivers as mentioned in part #1 of this guide.

Step 5

Click the Driver tab and then SelectUpdate Driver…

Step 6

ClickBrowse my computer for driver software.

Step 7

ClickLet me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer.

Step 8

ClickShow All Devices and then ClickNext.

Step 9

ClickHave Disk…

Step 10

ClickBrowse.

Step 11

Browse to the folder you extracted the Android SDK to. From there go to:

android-sdk-windowsusb_driver

Selectandroid_winusb.inf and ClickOpen.

Step 12

Here you need to know whether your device is composite or not. Refer to Step 4 above to make sure.

Under Model, ClickAndroid ADB Interface* and then ClickNext.

*If you have a composite device Click the Composite option. Samsung Galaxy S is composite.

Step 13

A pesky warning will appear. ClickYes.

Done!

Now we are ready to take some screenshots!

#5. Run DDMS And Start Taking Screenshots!

Step 1 – Launch the Dalvik Debug Monitor!

In the folder you extracted the Android SDK to Browse to:

android-sdk-windowstools

In the Tools folder, Double-Clickddms.bat

Tip: For future quick-access you may want to Pin this file to your start menu.

Step 2

Time to take a screenshot of what is currently being displayed on your Android phone. Click your Device from the list in the top-left pane. Then Click the Device menu and SelectScreen capture…

Tip: Or Select thephone from the list and then Press CTRL+S on your keyboard to save time.

Done! Finally!

Your screenshot will pop up in the Device Screen Capture window. The screenshot will likely be much larger than your actual device, this is because it captures it at the device’s true resolution.

From here you can save your image, but don’t use the Save button. The save feature in this utility will greatly decrease the quality of your image!

Instead you can Copythe screenshot to another program such as Paint and then save it. Remember, PNG is the best format!

Conclusion

You now know how to take screenshots of ANY Android device using your computer. For the Samsung Galaxy S this is currently the only technique that works, but I’ve heard rumors that in Android 2.2 (Froyo) you will be able to use a hardware key combination to take the screenshot! I can’t wait!

17 Comments

17 Comments

Robert

Hehehe nice, well done. It looks great. Im going to use this, if it works with Froyo. Because the Galaxy S is getting Froyo the 23rd of sept.

I hear you @jacks69. The reason they don’t allow this right now is because of a security concern, the theory is that someone could obtain passwords but putting out a trojan that takes constant screenshots and sends them back to the developer.

I think that it’s not really a concern for iPhone because the app store is so heavily monitored that it would be very hard to get an app that does this past them. Where as with Android devices you can sideload (download from non Android Market approved apps) any app without jailbreaking, or rooting it.

On iPhone you need to physically click on buttons. Android could have used the same method. Some things are surprisingly simple, easy, thus user friendly on iPhone.

Robert

I cant get this to work. It goes wrong when i need to update the drivers. I cant update the drivers because that button isnt “clickable”. When I go on, and double click ddms.bat, it opens a black command line window. Nothing more.

On Samsung Galaxy S with Froyo (Android v2.2) you can take screenshots by holding down the BACK button and then hitting the HOME button.
A .png file will be saved into “/mnt/sdcard/ScreenCapture” folder.